.TH LASTCOMM 1 "1995 October 31"
.SH NAME
lastcomm \-  print out information about previously executed commands.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.hy 0
.na
.TP
.B lastcomm
[
.I command-name ...
]
.br
[
.I user-name ...
]
.br
[
.I terminal-name ...
]
.br
[ OPTION ... ]
.ad b
.hy 1
.SH DESCRIPTION
.LP
.B lastcomm
prints out information about previously executed
commands.  If no arguments are specified, 
.B lastcomm 
will print info
about all of the commands in 
.I acct
(the record file).  If called with one or more of
.I command-name,
.I user-name, 
or 
.I terminal-name,
only records containing those items will be displayed.  For 
example, to find out which users used command `a.out' 
and which users were logged into `tty0', type:
.ce
lastcomm a.out tty0
.ce 0
.LP
This will print any entry for which `a.out' or `tty0' 
matches in any of the record's fields (command, name, or terminal).  If 
you want to find only items that match *all* of the arguments on the command 
line, you must use the '\-strict-match' option.  For example, to list 
all of the executions of command 
.IR a.out " by user " root " on terminal " tty0, 
type:
.ce 
lastcomm \-\-strict-match \-\-command a.out \-\-user root \-\-tty tty0
.ce 0
.LP
The order of the arguments is not important.
.LP
For each entry the following information is printed:
   + command name of the process
   + flags, as recorded by the system accounting routines:
        S -- command executed by super-user
        F -- command executed after a fork but without a following exec
        C -- command run in PDP-11 compatibility mode (VAX only)
        D -- command terminated with the generation of a core file
        X -- command was terminated with the signal SIGTERM
   + the name of the user who ran the process
   + time the process started
.SH OPTIONS
.PD 0
.TP
.B \-\-strict\-match
Print only entries that match *all* of the arguments on the command
line.
.TP
.B \-\-print\-controls 
Print control characters.
.TP
.BI \-\-user " name"
List records for user with
.I name.
This is useful if you're trying
to match a username that happens to be the same as a command (e.g.,
.I ed
).
.TP
.BI \-\-command " name"
List records for command
.I name.
.TP
.BI \-\-tty " name"
List records for tty
.I name.
.TP
.BI \-\-forwards
Read file forwards instead of backwards. This avoids trying to seek on the file
and can be used to read from a pipe. This must be specified prior to any
.BI \-f
arguments.
.TP
.BI \-f " filename, " \-\-file " filename"
Read from the file 
.I filename 
instead of
.I acct.
A filename of "-" will result in reading from stdin. This must either be the
first
.BI \-f
option, or
.BI \-\-forwards
must precede all
.BI \-f
options.
.TP
.BI \-\-ahz " hz"
Use this flag to tell the program what
.B AHZ
should be (in hertz).  This option is useful if you are trying to view
an
.I acct
file created on another machine which has the same byte order and file
format as your current machine, but has a different value for
.B AHZ.
.TP
.B \-p, \-\-show\-paging
Print paging statistics.
.TP
.B \-\-pid
Add pid of the process and pid of the process parent to the output
(pid is the last but one and parent pid the last column).
These values are shown only when they are generated by acct function
(depends on the version of kernel)
.TP
.B \-\-debug
Print verbose internal information.
.TP
.B \-V, \-\-version
Print the version number of
.B lastcomm.
.TP
.B \-h, \-\-help
Prints the usage string and default locations of system files to
standard output and exits.

.SH FILES
.I acct
.RS
The system wide process accounting file. See
.BR acct (5)
(or
.BR pacct (5))
for further details.
.I /var/log/account
.RS
This directory contains pacct files which contain the binary process
accounting data as written by the kernel.
.RE
.LP

.SH AUTHOR
The GNU accounting utilities were written by Noel Cragg
<noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu>. The man page was adapted from the accounting
texinfo page by Susan Kleinmann <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR last (1),
.BR acct (5)